Thread Tools

My memory isnt the greatest, but this is how *I* remember these seasons....

2005 - Upset in Denver. Lots of mishaps. First time BB loses in the playoffs as HC. The "mystique" of Brady/Belichick in the playoffs is finally gone.

2006 - Horrible WR corps loses it for Pats. Colts win an easy SuperBowl against the Bears. Should've been ours if we didnt have Doug Gabriel and Chad Jackson as our WR's.

2007 - Welker and Moss are signed. Finally Brady has some good WR's. Spygate is revealed and blown out of proportion. Pats crush everyone in their way. Go 16-0 "running up the score" for many games. Everyone in the league hates us. Lose in the SB. Questionable non-calls (Holding? Roughing the passer?). Humiliating defeat for Belichick and the Pats.

2008 - Expecting the Pats to comeback for revenge and reach another SuperBowl, Brady suffers season ending injury in the first week. Season is thought to be lost. Cassel comes in and performs well enough to get a high 2nd rounder for him. 11-5 and still miss out on the playoffs. Could've done some damage in the post season but I don't think we were a SB threat with Cassel.

2009 - Seymour is traded. Vrable is traded. Bruschi retires. End of an era. All our leaders are gone and we lacked leadership the entire year. "Late-gate" with Adalius Thomas. Brady comes back and looks very uncomfortable. Didn't seem to have the energy he previously had. Mentally seemed a bit off, or scared to get hit. Rebuilding season. Welker goes out with knee injury right before the playoffs. Team was weak and got pushed around by Baltimore in the playoffs.

2010 - Magical season. Probably the most fun I've had as a fan. Brady firmly takes over as THE leader of the team. Has one of his best seasons ever and shows he's 100% healed from the knee injury. The young guns start showing their worth. Mayo has a monster season. McCourty couldve won DROY if not for Suh. Chung and Ninkovich have a break out game against Miami. Woodhead comes out of nowhere and is the gift that kept on giving. Gronk and Hernendez change our offense drastically. Moss is traded and we pick up Branch. Much to the dismay of the media, it actually makes us a BETTER team. Lose to the lowly Browns and then go crazy, crushing everyone in our way. Run it up on our arch enemy, the Jets.... then get upset by the Jets in the Playoffs. Lots of Jets faking injuries. Couldn't get in a rhythm. Jets celebrate all over our field and rub it in.

2011 - Anderson+Carter finally give us a Pass Rush. Secondary is decimated by injuries. Haynesworth debacle. McCourty has sophomore slump big time. Brady smashing passing records in the first few weeks. Gronk smashing TE records for TD and yards. We lose to the good teams (Steelers,Giants) and everyone writes us off. We quietly fly under the radar while the Packers and Saints get most attention as the "elite". Pack and Saints both get upset in the playoffs... We seemingly get hot around playoff time.... still being written....

______________________________________________________

I'd really REALLY like to see Brady get another ring to solidify himself as the #1 or #1b QB of all time.

I'd like to see Belichick get another ring without people using spygate as an excuse.

I'd like to see Brady/Belichick get redemption for the 07/08 seasons. I felt robbed after those two.

05 - disbelief
06 - blamed it on BB for trading Branch
07 - blamed it on the refs
08 - blamed it on the injury
09 - didnt expect much that year
10 - surprised by how good we were, then disappointed in playoffs.

2005-3 in a row is too much
2006-wish we could get guys like Deion branch
2007-oh so close....we used to make halftime adjustments
2008-still fun watching a guy like cassel throw for 400
2009-not enough bullets
2010-still looking over your shoulder
2011-no defense? No problem

I put it on the coaching/personnel staff that the pats don't have 2 more SB trophies for 2006 and 2007

2005-3 in a row is too much
2006-wish we could get guys like Deion branch
2007-oh so close....we used to make halftime adjustments
2008-still fun watching a guy like cassel throw for 400
2009-not enough bullets
2010-still looking over your shoulder
2011-no defense? No problem

I put it on the coaching/personnel staff that the pats don't have 2 more SB trophies for 2006 and 2007

Click to expand...

2006 was coaching and personnels fault for not having any WR's. I guess they thought Chad Jackson would amount to something. Maybe they thought Brady could turn horrible WR's like Reche Caldwell and Doug Gabriel into decent players. Seems like BB arrogance thinking it's the scheme and not the players who win games.

2007.....Whether it was Goodell or one of the refs... I believe SOMEONE high up did not want the Pats to win that game.

On one end of the ball, theyre allowing the Giants to rough Brady up after every throw. Then on the other end of the ball, theyre allowing the Giants to bearhug our Dlinemen. Yeah Eli made a great escape and throw... but that wouldnt have been possible without his OLine committing the most blatant holds of all time.

Going on it on 4th and 13 was a sign that BB Was going to do it the way he wants to do it, or it wasn't going to happen. The pats had the players to adjust at halftime, but they did not. Forget the refs......if you count on them, you'll never get there

2006 was coaching and personnels fault for not having any WR's. I guess they thought Chad Jackson would amount to something. Maybe they thought Brady could turn horrible WR's like Reche Caldwell and Doug Gabriel into decent players. Seems like BB arrogance thinking it's the scheme and not the players who win games.

2007.....Whether it was Goodell or one of the refs... I believe SOMEONE high up did not want the Pats to win that game.

On one end of the ball, theyre allowing the Giants to rough Brady up after every throw. Then on the other end of the ball, theyre allowing the Giants to bearhug our Dlinemen. Yeah Eli made a great escape and throw... but that wouldnt have been possible without his OLine committing the most blatant holds of all time.

Anyway ... I was thinking you could look at this team since the turn of the century and say "Man, a few breaks and they could easily have five Super Bowl wins (06-07, 07-08), even six if they didn't cave against the Jets last year. And that 08 team would have been dangerous in the playoffs!" Or you could look at it and say, "A few breaks go the other way, and they have zero Lombardis." All seems to even out, and it's a great run for a franchise that has reloaded for round two.

Going on it on 4th and 13 was a sign that BB Was going to do it the way he wants to do it, or it wasn't going to happen. The pats had the players to adjust at halftime, but they did not. Forget the refs......if you count on them, you'll never get there

Click to expand...

Brady was only sacked 5 times that game. However, watching it you would've thought he was sacked 15 times because he was on the ground almost every time he dropped back.

5 sacks... 18 knock downs.... You're telling me none of those 18 knockdowns were late hits? The Giants gameplan was basically "Hit Brady no matter what... Even if it gets us a flag".

But there were no flags.

Poor officiating... or fixed officiating. Take your pick.

I dont know what kind of adjustments we couldve made. We were built to pass. We got to the SuperBowl and went 16-0 by breaking passing records. Everytime our QB dropped back he was hit by a 280lbs lineman.

Anyway ... I was thinking you could look at this team since the turn of the century and say "Man, a few breaks and they could easily have five Super Bowl wins (06-07, 07-08), even six if they didn't cave against the Jets last year. And that 08 team would have been dangerous in the playoffs!" Or you could look at it and say, "A few breaks go the other way, and they have zero Lombardis." All seems to even out, and it's a great run for a franchise that has reloaded for round two.

Click to expand...

You are 100% right.

But it's hard not to feel robbed in 07.... and think what could've happened in 06 and 08 (if Brady wasnt injured).

2008 was the Cardinals/Steelers SuperBowl.... we wouldve been better than both those teams if Brady were healthy. Then again.... you never know what's going to happen.

Usually we are the favorites in the AFC. This seems like the first year where everybody has written off the Patriots. It's the first time we've gone under the radar. Everyone was expecting the Packers or Saints to be in the SuperBowl. Steelers were expected to be in contention.

They're all gone. How sweet it would be to finally win another Lombardi in the year that nobody expected it.

Y... Everyone was expecting the Packers or Saints to be in the SuperBowl. Steelers were expected to be in contention.

They're all gone. How sweet it would be to finally win another Lombardi in the year that nobody expected it.

Click to expand...

Pretty sweet. But if the Pats win it all, be ready for lots of noise about being lucky that those teams were eliminated early by others. (Though it never gets mentioned that the Steelers have never â€” at least in the past 15 years â€” beaten the Pats post-season on the way to a Super Bowl).

Amazed that we continue to be in contention and that people can only biatch about it as if we must win it all every season or we/someone/something sucks...

But then - I guess like Robert - my memory doesn't suck and I'm old enough to remember what it was like for much of my early to mid life to be a Patsie's fan...when the bestest thing you could dare to hope for on Christmas was a home playoff game...

I guess perspective is relative. I haven't been PO'd about much of anything beyond the way spygate was handled by the league and characterized by the media or the way this fan base has become increasingly ingracious and entitled since the evening of February 3, 2002.

I was concerned they would never be able to top that accomplishment, and in time the naysayers would diminish it. Then they did, so that didn't happen...oddly until much later. I would have loved to see them win in 2006 or 2007 and was disapointed when they missed by a hair - but moreso for them than myself. They haven't owed me a thing in years... And I guess I'm a rational enough fanatic to accept that they were never going to win them all. God, they were a long shot to ever win any for so much of my life...

I'm with Robert. I'm thrilled to see them compete for a shot at the playoff every freakin' season for 11 years and counting - anything else is gravy. I count my football blessings every day that a HC like Bill and a QB like Tom jog out of a tunnel leading my team onto the field every Sunday in season. I'm going to cherish that for as long as I can.

09 - end of an era... adios adalius and the locker room cancers thanks for the draft pick seymour

10 - Honestly one of the most enjoyable regular seasons i have been a part of as i was pulling for this great crop of rookies... i still to this day have not seen a snap of the jets game. I taped it and didn't have the heart to watch it after someone told me the result.

Pretty sweet. But if the Pats win it all, be ready for lots of noise about being lucky that those teams were eliminated early by others. (Though it never gets mentioned that the Steelers have never â€” at least in the past 15 years â€” beaten the Pats post-season on the way to a Super Bowl).

Click to expand...

We earned the #1 seed. Therefore we're SUPPOSED to get an "easier" road to the SuperBowl.

That's the entire point of the #1 seed. We played all year long to earn it.

I'm gonna cheat & do iconic images back to 01, where they apply... Hey for the ones I don't have an iconic image for, someone fill in the blanks...

01 - that pic of Brady w/his hands on his head, like "We did what???"

02 - Iconic memory - I had a wimp-***** bucks fan friend & we went to a bar to watch them play the Raiders. He was just about silent... memory was taunting a whole table of "we're soo baddd" Raiders fans. And that's what being a Pats fan was like by the end of 02.

05 - Benjamin Watson batting that ball out of Champ Bailey's hand on the 1, after chasing him down on a 101-yard return. Perfect for that season - they always were gonna finally go down, but they did it with at least some semblance of character.

06 - Any photo of bug-eyed glandular freak Reche Caldwell, who I will always love for the level he achieved from a basic level of fail he started from. He was never as big as the role he tried to fill but I love him for getting to his ceiling -- and I hate the coaching staff b/c they shoulda known that ceiling was way too low.

07 - The re-load. Spygate. 18-0. 18-1. Iconic image: David Fu(kin Tyree, who for me now forever shares the same middle name as Bucky Dent. Screw the bad calls and non-calls... Screw Borges for dropping yet another inaccurate story on the eve of the SB (didn't he do one in 86 saying the whole team was substance abusers?) Screw all of it. 07 was the ultimate perfect storm of weird crap, with the almost-perfect response. Proof positive that you've made the big time: People taunt you when you go 18-1.

08 - Iconic Image: Brady goes down first play of the season. Knowing we'll always be in contention - b/c 11-5 without Brady means someone in Foxboro really does know what he's doing.

09 - I have no iconic image. To me 09 was the year the D finally and forever turned over to the next era. Again, yay us for even being there in a rebuilding year. Think of the 09 squad under McPhereson, right?

10 - No iconic image. General feeling of "2nd tier" status, 1-and-done in the playoffs second year in a row.

Winning 2 straight SBs should be a one in 1000 occurrence, all else being equal. I agree with others here who say we're spoiled. Even winning 1 SB, all else being equal, should happen 2 to 3 times in your life.

Those of us who predate 2001 remember being fans of a team still waiting for "our turn" in that 1-in-32-years, average-team-average-outcomes rotation. We were a pitifully bad team during some seasons.

Here is the way I would describe it.
By 03-04 the Patriots had easily the best roster in the NFL, and had many players who had outplayed the contracts that allowed them to all be fit in under the cap.
If the cap was 100mill, and every player on the 2004 roster was made a free agent, they would have taken up 150mill in cap space.
From that point on, it was not only impossible to keep all of their players, each one they did keep took up a lot more cap space, they player they could afford to bring in as a replacement was a much lower level quality guy.
It was a natural course of events that the overall talent level was going to steadily decline. The decline and rebuild was accelerated by being able to get Moss and Welker and create a dominant offense while it lasted.
If you put aside the genius, and inexpensive moves for Moss and Welker, you can clearly see a steady decline in talent, and a rebuilding effort.
Rather than find it disappointing that the team has gone a whole 6 years without winning a SB, I find it remarkable that they have remained so competitve through the transition.